DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “What Next for the Economy?”

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Anxiety over the economy is the focus on “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou,” where political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou are joined by guest Aquiles Larrea. Aquiles Larrea Jr. is a prominent financial advisor and founder of Larrea Wealth Management, specializing in wealth strategies for Latino executives. A bestselling author and media commentator, he empowers clients with tailored financial planning and economic insights.Economic Warning Signs: Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist, warns that the U.S. economy teeters on the brink of recession, with job growth at a “virtual standstill” and tariffs driving up consumer prices. August’s jobs report looms and states like California and New York signal economic weakness.A Tale of Two Economies: McDonald’s expands its value menu as CEO Chris Kempczinski notes a “two-tier economy,” in which middle- and lower-income consumers are struggling. Inflation and stagnant job growth hit low-income households hardest.Are Cartels “Terrorism”?: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reveals on DeProgram orders a deadly U.S. strike targeting Venezuelan cartel boats in the Caribbean as part of Trump’s aggressive anti-fentanyl campaign.Metropolitan Opera’s Saudi Scheme: The Met’s $100 million agreement with Saudi Arabia aims to stabilize the Met’s finances but raises ethical questions amid Saudi’s human rights record.Trump’s Deportations Blocked: A federal appeals court rejects Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. Fifth Circuit ruling halts plans targeting Venezuelan immigrants, setting the stage for a Supreme Court battle.

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in to D. Program with me, Ted Rall, the cartoonist, and John Kariaku. I'm going to have to come up with a better introduction. We didn't give it any thought, really. We haven't really talked about it. No, we just show up. Although we're lucky John's even here. Thanks for tuning in at our slightly different one hour late today. We'll be back at a regular time, Monday through Friday, 5 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow, but today is Wednesday, September 3rd, and we're here at 6 p.m. So thanks for joining us. Please like, follow and share the show. The show is growing by leaps and bounds. Thanks to you guys. This is really truly, and thanks also, for those of you

who have followed us over to Rumble and are watching there or watching on both, thank you for doing that. That's literally, we're beginning to see signs that we may actually be able to pay our bills So starting this month, which would be amazing. And that's thanks to you guys in all seriousness and your financial support. And so we'll just get to it. Joining us in just a couple of minutes, we have a financial advisor and founder of Larea wealth management, Achilles Larea, Jr. He will be joining us to talk about some early warning signs in the economy. Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi, you've probably heard of him, is saying that we may be looking at a recession as early

as Q4, which is basically now. Right now. We're in Q4 as of a couple of days ago. So we'll get into that. McDonald's is adjusting accordingly. There's other signs that there's some economic weakness. So we thought Achilles would be perfect to talk to about this. We've also got some breaking news from Harvard. Harvard just won a court victory.

The federal judge has ruled that this is in the early, stages of litigation. There will be appeals that the Trump administration did not have the right to withhold that $2 billion in research grants from the university. So we'll be getting into that late breaking news. Also, the missile strike against a boat full of supposedly cartel terrorists, if cartel members are terrorists, and in fact, if they were members of a cartel, no evidence has been supplied. Is this how dangerous is this? You probably know how I feel about this. The Metropolitan Opera is sucking up to the Saudis, should we care. I guess Jamal Khashoggi's survivors and friends probably do.

And the federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's attempt to deport Venezuelans and others under the Alien Enemies Act. So we'll talk about the Trump administration's tactic of basically doing whatever they want, asking for, you know, don't ask for permission, just ask for forgiveness from the courts and how that's all working. It seems like it's probably working pretty well for them. John, should we go ahead and bring in Achilles? I'm looking forward to this very much. Yes, please do. Okay, Achilles Lurea. Thank you so much for joining us.

He's a prominent financial advisor and founder of Larea wealth management, specializing in wealth strategies for Latino executives, but I hope you'll share with us Whites, too. A best-selling author and media commentator. He empowers, although Latinos are white too, right? They can be whatever. I'm already stepping in it. He empowers clients with tailored financial planning and economic insights.

Keyles, thanks for joining us here on D-Program. Well, I'm happy to be here honored, as usual, guys. This is the first time in a long time. Ted and I, we've talked before on previous shows, and so happy to be in part, hopefully, a little bit of wisdom, a little bit of reality text and so on and so forth. All right, Akeel, let's get to it. So Mark Zandi says that the U.S. economy is teetering on the brink of recession.

When you and I talked last time, you were pretty sanguine about the state of the economy, at least through the end of this calendar year. You were saying there might be some, you know, the economy might be hitting the breaks next year, maybe due for a minor, modest, I should say, I don't want to put words in your mouth, a modest correction. And this, do you agree with Mr. Zandi's assessment? No, it was still kind of early off. Not all the evidence is that, you know, the funny thing about economics is that you have some factors coming in.

But in general, you know, Moody's other big houses, they're looking at around 15 to 17 different factors coming in. I still think the recession is still at earliest, Q1, 26, Q2. I don't think, you know, we were supposed to have a recession two years ago, guys. You know, so all of a sudden we're talking about again, I think the more dangerous thing to discuss at this particular point is are we in stackflation right now? We are definitely seeing signs of the economy slowing down as a whole. We're starting to see unemployment creep up. You know, we're starting to see inflation, although somewhat control, but not really. And, you know, as the numbers keep coming out, we get more information.

So stackflation, can you define that for us? My understanding from the 1970s was that basically that was low GDP growth coupled with inflation. Yeah, I mean, versus, you know, versus a recession where you have zero BDP growth for more than two quarters. You know, stackflation is a whole, I call it a whole bunch of nothing going on because that's exactly what's happening there. But at the same time, you have prices rising, you have interest rates kind of holding steady. We're not seeing them going down at any particular point. And that's what we're waiting for. Is the Fed going to temper it down? You know, we see statistics that 96% of people who are betting the Fed are going to cut interest rates this particular month, you know, that that could happen.

But if the numbers keep coming out positive, that's not going to happen. And Fed's, you know, Jerome Powell's just going to hold fast until such time. Personally, I think they're going to going to cut this month. I don't think they have any choice. They've been holding off as long as they could have. But I think the real problem right now are the rising clause, are the fact that unemployment is starting to creep up, and the fact that consumer confidence is now kind of hitting the skids. We're not, you know, everybody you talk to, if you just go to your local market, everybody you talk to is saying, hey, holy cow, you know, look at the price of something. went up, you know, 20, 30% in less than six months.

You know, we saw this before when inflation went into double digit. And now we're back in single digits. But, you know, at the same time, you say to yourself, wow, but, you know, food stuff, which is and gas prices are still going up. So I need to be, you know, cognizant of my cost. I need to be cognizant of, you know, am I, if I'm going to buy a house, I got to watch you know, what rates am I going to go for in that particular point? You know, people think that just because rates go down, say the Fed lowers interest rates,

you know, it's not in tandem with mortgage rates. As a matter of fact, it could be the very opposite sometimes. The first thing that happens when the Fed usually cuts rates is that housing prices go up in the short term. So you could be seeing three to six months or two quarters where housing prices start shooting up, where something that was a million dollars before here in the metropolitan area in New York City, all of a sudden is at $1.4 million. And we're seeing real examples of that happening as we speak. Stevie over on the YouTube feed says Trump administration is going to cook the numbers.

Who are you going to trust? I mean, you know, that's a concern, right? I mean, it may or may not happen, but now with the Bureau of Labor Statistics being politicized and not to mention the Fed lady suing to not be fired. We don't even know if she's really fired or not. You know, there's the appearance of Skull Duggery in the economic statistics, isn't there? Well, you know, it's an interesting term. But I would say more likely, you know, with what's going on with the Fed, that's going to change a whole lot.

You know, whether Ms. Cook is a part of it or not, it doesn't really. matter you have a bunch of governors there there's a reason you have that many people uh not everybody wants to piss off the boss but it is independent you know and he's not really supposed to be firing anybody there i think it's a it's a bunch of bravado more than anything i think that uh you know when you took it the look at the bureau of labor statistics you know oh i don't like this number you know tough tough you don't like it too bad you don't have to like it but the numbers don't lie. And guess what?

Prices under your watch so far have gone up double digits. What are you doing about it instead of doing this silly little game or playing game of people who come in with numbers who have staffs, multiple dozens of people, putting together these numbers, but instead you're playing the head of a particular apartment and you let them go. you know what the next person could save the same thing you know even if you plant 10 people you know you can't the numbers do not lie gentlemen that's for sure um a different stephen with stephen victor andrews is asking conventional wisdom is that volker killed stagnation by jacking up interest rates

do you agree with that uh you know it's an interesting question i think that it sure has affected interest rates, but I don't think to the extent where, you know, it's taken it to another level. I still think that at the end of the day, you know, the Fed's looking at unemployment, the Fed's looking at inflation. That is their main target. That is what they are going to focus on. That has not changed since I've been doing this over 30 years. I don't foresee it changing. you could say what you want till the cows come home guys but at the end of the day the numbers don't lie and mr mr trump and this administration really need to examine what they can do to start resolving this tariffs aren't going to get it done we are not in the early 1900s we are

not in the 1800s i understand the mentality but we are no longer a manufacturing economy. It would take us probably the better part of 10 to 15 years to tool up and go back in that direction. Of one party, right? One party, we would need an authoritarian regime, right? Basically, we would have to have a different form of government instead of elections and changing parties and even different policies within the parties, yeah?

Yeah, and you know what? you see all this gerrymandering stuff that's going on you know you said to yourself well you know you're trying to rig the game but two can play that game as well you know as we head into the next elections

you know the Democrats are starting to get a little bit smarter with their strategies we're already seeing with Newsom out in California we've seen with Hockel here in New York that hey you want to play that game we're going to play that game too they say to

themselves. So I don't know how far they'll get. You know, five votes isn't a lot. Now, if every single state, you know, that's red versus every blue state starts to do so, you know, then it's, is it a nulling effect? What does it really become? And who do we trust? Well, if everyone does it, I think the net will be more of a, more Republican control. Yeah. So let's talk about, let's talk a little bit about McDonald's. So the CEO there, Chris Kamsinski, says that basically they're observing a two-tier economy. Obviously, if any company has their fingers on the pulse or needs to have the finger on the pulse of the working class, it's McDonald's. They say that middle and lower income consumers are really struggling, and therefore they're going to expand their value menu.

last time I went to Mickey D.A.A. and got a, you know, I get the small-sized meal. I'm partial to the double Whopper. It was 13 or 14 bucks, which seemed to me kind of high. It's funny. You know, by the way, Wopper's Burger King. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the Big Mac.

Yeah, that one. I always continue. You know, I found that kind of funny coming for the CEO of McDonald's, because they were trying to upscale their clientele when their bread and butter has always been the working class. And the working class is not going to pay $12, $13 for a burger. I don't care what anybody says. Because they can't.

So they, yeah, and it doesn't make sense because you were offering something that was maybe $5 to $8 at one point, and now we're double, and we could conceivably be even more than that in the future. oh, it didn't work. So now we've got to go back to the value. And then all of a sudden, they're realizing, hey, we've got two type of consumers here. We're going to have two tiers of consumers, the ones who don't care how much things cost.

But then your regular Joe public, you know, junkie public wants to have that value meal. You know, they'll go, they'll spend $5. You know, they'll spend, you know, $7, whatever it's costing and get, you know, get enough food for the kids, you know, as a treat. but it certainly will not be the regular thing that McDonald's was really known for, you know, which was a value-based menu appealing to the masses. Robbie has a question for you. I just figured I just put him in and he can just ask it himself, and he has some housekeeping to do too.

Yeah, just real quick housekeeping. I will be setting up a Discord server tonight, so people have been asking for that. That will be going live, and I will have a link for you all to be able to join it tomorrow. and a question for you Achilles is I'm going to assume that CEOs are able to read calendars and so if with Trump doing all this stuff that he's doing through tariffs whoever succeeds him can just undo what he's doing wouldn't the smart play if he really wants to bring back

industrialization to re-industrialize the country to actually I don't know bring back jobs wouldn't the smart play be go to Congress and actually just televise it and say here's what's going to happen we're going to do i want y'all to bring to pass a law called the bring back jobs act and if you are a company that's making stuff overseas you're going to pay this much money in tariffs and so i mean you have to that way they just can't run out the clock and then for the cherry on top say you cannot then hire h1b visas bring back the h1b visa

workers you have to actually hire americans to bring up wages Wouldn't that solve this problem? No, absolutely. Well, the reason why you go to Congress is, I mean, who can honestly vote against that? Who can say no? Jobs in China or India are more important than jobs here in America. Special interest can say no to that, Robbie. It's very easy.

If you think about it, all they have to do is. You know, think about who's supporting these candidates, you know, who's supporting the special interest groups are completely in the know. You know, they need those type of workers. We are, you know, it's not about that guy who's in the factory making, you know, boots or whatever it is. It's about that guy or gal from India, China, whatever part of the world who is doing the sophisticated, using sophisticated technologies to keep corporations here ahead. And I don't foresee that going in a different direction at this particular point,

because companies need those people. It's very difficult to go backwards. What are we going to do? Two steps backwards to go forward and even to forward, what is that going to look like? So you have to be careful with what you wish for, in my opinion. So this type of particular train of thought can be very perilous at the least because you come back and you say,

you know, where do we walk the line with authoritarianism? Where do we walk the line with dictatorship, you know, socialism? I mean, they talk about, you know, money going into Intel, you know, bringing chips back into the United States and the like you. I mean, is this really what we want, is it, or is this just a payoff at this particular point? Are we bribing people? Because, you know what? That happens in third world countries. that's what that's true and Robbie I'm going to take you out here so but um thank you for that

question but Aquila I got to ask you I mean so I thought I'm I'm really of two minds about that 10 percent of Intel so um you know if Intel is a company that's too big to fail as far as American politics is concerned and I want to ask my first question is it or was it um then it's Chrysler and it's 1979 or whatever it was back then and I always like like many Americans, got pissed off about the fact that the taxpayers bailed out this company and then basically we never owned any of it. And if we're like the big banks, we bailed them out. We never owned any of it. I feel like, hey, if, you know, if we're, if we had a private company here, if we had deep program LLC, we were in trouble and we went to, you know,

some guy from Shark Tank, they would ask for a cut of our company to get money. How come the taxpayers can't do the same. I mean, you know, I mean, is it necessarily, if we're going to give the money anyway, shouldn't we get something back? You know, it's a great idea in theory, but anytime, I think anytime you see the bailouts occur, the only person or the entity is the real one that wins. The workers don't win. The public doesn't win.

I don't foresee that changing. I just see that, you know, this is. for lack of a better word, this is welfare for corporations, you know, and at the same time, if you think about it, there's no responsibility. I mean, what banks, you know, the banks created a lot of their own problems. If you think about it, go back to the Glass-Steagall Act. The minute that was repealed, we started having problems because there was no checks and balances. Oh, let them do what it is that they can do and you know you had investment banking talking to other departments and the reason there was a glass steel act was to prevent that from happening to prevent

impropriety because a lot of times you leave these financial companies to their own devices you know what it's it's easy to say hey we got this thing going on and hey why don't you jump into the fray mm-hmm John, any questions? I do have a quick question. I have actually not even a quick question. I have several very long questions, but I'm going to try to keep it short. One of the things that I worry about, genuinely, as an American, is we have such a massive debt.

What is it? $30-something trillion. 37 trillion dollars. At the same time, we're spending more than a trillion. dollars a year on defense, is that sustainable? I suppose MMT adherents would say, oh, it's all silliness. None of it means anything anyway. But realistically, we have to pay the interest on the government bonds that fund the debt. So what's the tipping point where we're just not going to be able to do it anymore or where it crashes the economy?

you know the uh what to bring up is a great point and but debt has been a part of our economy since the revolutionary war we owed france you know we owed uh other countries money ever since that point i don't believe there is a tipping point per se i think where it comes into play is Are we going to start becoming a little bit more fiscally responsible and buffering, you know, what's happening? I don't foresee it just being a radical turnaround at any given point because it's in nobody's best interest to do so. You know, it's like, oh, we're saddling our grandkids with this debt and what have you. You know what? We had dead even before we were born.

But it's just like Malthusianism, we're going to be able to tell after the fact or, you know, after the revolution comes, we'll be like, oh, that revolution, we should have seen it coming or like the smoker, like, oh, now I have lung cancer, but before you get lung cancer, you're fine. Is it like that? I think so. I agree with that. But at the same time, you know, you have to ask yourself, well, if we're so worried about dead end, I think, who was it, Rand Paul, the congressman, Rand Paul, you know he's a fiscal hawk and yet every single red side republican voted for this bill which allows for the top tier of this country to get tax cuts you know yeah all in the sake of some farce known as trickled down economics which is the biggest farce i've ever seen that has been every single economists i've ever read their take on this as debunked this as absolute garbage well it was one of those things that like even theoretically it didn't hold water uh you know but i mean you know obviously what's better for you know you give money to a poor person they spend yeah you give them a hundred

bucks they spend that all hundred dollars you give that hundred bucks to a rich person they're putting in their savings account and probably putting it in the seychelles or whatever um yeah question from Reed, how is your business, the wealth management business, financial advisor, how are you guys doing in this uncertain economy and how are independent broker dealers going to adapt in a worst case scenario? I love this question. Oh, it's a great question. You know, the funny thing is when COVID hit and everybody was getting, you know, we saw a whole bunch of business going out, broker dealers and independent advisors were growing double digits. I see that. I see the same thing happening right now.

My particular business is growing. You know, I mean, I just come into the office, I could not have a new client come in, but because of the way we invest, because how we're helping our clients, we've seen the business grow. You know, TV doesn't hurt, but at the same time, you know, if you are running your practice well and communicating well with your clients. You are going to grow your business by default and design. Yeah.

So I guess, and do you agree with the idea that, I mean, I don't think there's anything new here, but McDonald's is saying, look, you know, rich people are doing great. They're not having any problems whatsoever. The rich are getting rich or the poorer, getting poorer, and we're seeing it in our business, McDonald's, that is. Is that, are we seeing just, is the economy going to continue to bifurcate? I mean, I feel like this is a trend that we've seen in this country all of my life, at least since the end of the Vietnam War.

And I don't see it getting any better anytime soon. I mean, it seemed like in the 90s it was a little better, but maybe not. Well, we're seeing definitely some erosion of the middle class. You know, and the definition you ask yourself when, you know, you say things like that, well, you know, the middle class, it used to be you could have a job. One family member would have. have the job, you would be able to support yourselves, have a nice home, well, you know, nice being a definition that's kind of loose, and be able to support your family and live a decent

life and be able to retire. Now it's not unheard of. And these are the words that I seen when I was, you know, when I talked to my cousins down in South America and Central America, You know, I hear, you know, the side hustle, you know, that you see people having to do that. That's a way of life down there, you know. So are we becoming that third world economy, you know, as you mentioned, are we heading in two directions? I think that's already happened. You know, I think people cannot make enough money with the job that they currently have to support the American dream. so they're having to go get two or three jobs and or you know and what kind of savings can I do

doing that what kind of life you know the more jobs you have the shorter your lifespan is because you don't have time for anything you can't enjoy the things in life that's you know the rich is and the pores are getting poorer last question for you uh kilos because we have unfortunately we could do that we could definitely do a whole hour with you but we've got other stuff to hit um How do, this is from Rebellious Rainbow Unicorn over on Rumble, how do economists measure a recession, a depression, inflation, and stagflation? Are there universally accepted definitions of these? Yeah, I mean, let's take recession, for instance.

We go into all of these. We'll be here for another hour. Econ 101 here. Exactly, you know. But if you look at Econ 101 or recession, is two negative GDP quarters, right? There's no if, ands or buts about it. But we didn't see that.

Guys, we're still seeing growth. We're still seeing movement towards the upside in certain aspects of the economy. It's just that in the cost of living, we're getting smashed right now. If you're John Q. Public, you're getting smash in foodstuffs. You're getting smashing, you know, even though gas hasn't gone up as much. I mean, just let's take the last quarter or so, you know, if you were at $3 and now it's $3.25, you know, that's a significant move to the upside. So a recession will hasten even more areas coming into play. It will also raise unemployment.

You know, you talk about the rich spending. there's only a certain amount of rich guys I mean what they say is a thousand billionaires out there there's only a certain amount of rich who can shoulder or you know bear the weight for the rest of the country

quote unquote you know so you have to say to yourself okay how is this affecting me as the general public how am I going to combat this in my own way and the truth of the matter when a recession hits there's no place to hide it'll affect

the markets it affects unemployment you know you start seeing double-digit unemployment we're in big trouble you know so we're not there here guys don't you know official official don't go show on the oars yeah we're not there yet but we do have we do have double-digit on unemployment it's not officially you know think about we have inflation right now inflation is what around three percent or so right now you know the fed loves to have things at a 2 percent but we're not there yet so you So you just need to ask yourself, how in my own world am I going to fight this particular economy? You know, do I have to get another job? Do I have to get a better job?

You know, do I need to upgrade my skills? You know, every day I see emails of certificate programs that are free, you know, from big-name computer companies. You know, and this is something my son, you know, know who's out of school now you know it says you know daddy i need to you know upgrade my skills and what have you because what i learned four years ago i need to keep that up i need to be relevant and i would suggest to any of your listeners if there is an opportunity to upgrade your skills to most certainly do so and get ahead while everybody else is still waiting on the fence or everybody else doesn't have a clue as to how to get ahead at this picture that's what i'm doing

right here, trying to become a successful podcaster after print media destroyed editorial cartooning and took it down with it. Achilles, thanks so much for joining us. Akela's Larea Jr. is a prominent financial advisor and the founder of Larea Wealth Management, specializing in wealth strategies for Latino execs, bestselling author. There's the picture of his book behind him and media commentator. He empowers clients with tailored financial planning and economic insights. Please come back again soon. Thanks for having me. All right, John, let's get... Important stuff, man.

I'm sorry, but let me interrupt you for one second. There's another issue. We only had, of course, 30 minutes with him, but there's this other issue, too, that my son asks me about with some regularity. And that is about housing prices. We've gotten to the point where young people are generally priced out of the housing market.

He's 20, he'll be 21 and a few. few weeks and very, very much wants to get into real estate. How's it going to do that, especially in a place like Arlington, Virginia, where the average price, which includes condos and includes some crappy areas, is $668,000 for a one-bedroom condo. Well, it's the wage slavery, right? Because here's the thing, he can rent, but it's good. The rent, his mortgage, if he had the down payment, he could, his mortgage, even at that price, would be less than what he could rent for. Probably be half.

And so, like, it's the trap is that people don't have capital. That's something that, you know, black guys were talking about 10, 20 years ago, like considerably about how it was, the system made it so hard for black people to accrue capital in order to start their own businesses. and to start on the road to home ownership. So you're right. I mean, not to mention housing prices are being inflated by these giant corporations that are... Yeah, they buy up thousands and thousands of houses and then they just sit on them. Especially in places that are sort of developing and, you know, sort of those are the kind of marginal areas that people used to buy starter homes.

They can't now. No. So it's, I mean, it should be illegal. I mean, you know, I know that like, contract law is sacrosanct capitalism is our state religion but it should be illegal because yes it's destroying actually the capitalist system star lion makes a point too if it's not black rock it's the chinese i'll tell you what i've been looking at real estate in athens for the last three or four years and i'm very serious about buying a place in athens but prices have doubled

in the last four or five years because the chinese the russians and the israelis are buying up all the real estate. And most of what they're buying goes straight on Airbnb. So Greeks can't afford to buy it to rent a place even because there aren't enough places on the rental market. They're all being held for Airbnb. It's outrageous. It is. It is. Rumble feeds feeling a little glitchy. So if you guys are, if you're experiencing on the Rumble, that's not your, that's not your system. That's that's not my system. That's their system. Anyway, but thanks for bearing with us and please try to bear with the rumble. Yeah, Houdini brings us up. Average age of new homeowners is now 50. So when I wrote Revenge of the Latchkey kids in 1996, that was a big Gen X manifesto saying

fuck the boomers, blah, blah, blah. I was decrying the fact that the average age of homeownership had recently increased from first home ownership, had increased from 28, sorry, 28 to 32. So just think about that's where we were. I mean, 50's crazy. I mean, look, the average life expectancy in this country is about 78. So basically, you know, hey, pretty soon you'll be dead before you can buy your first home.

You know, my first, my first piece of real estate that I bought was a very humble, small, one-bedroom. condo in Falls Church, Virginia, I was making, I'm almost embarrassed to say what I was making in 1988. I was making $17,800 a year working for the federal government, waiting for my CIA clearances to come through. And I was able to buy a condo making $17,800 a year. I bought a house three years later, my very first house that was like $150,000. Can you imagine what a house would look like today that cost $150,000 in the Washington metropolitan area? You couldn't get one.

I mean, look, I grew up in the Rust Belt in Dayton, as you know, like you, not in Dayton, but the Rust Belt. And like, you can't get a house in Dayton for $150,000. Well, you could. It would be like falling down. But, you know, one with four walls and a roof. No way. I like this question from Adam Fighter and we'll pivot over to something else. after this. But would we ever consider moving to a third world country with low prices if the

situation in the U.S. were to get dire? I would consider it. Yeah, I would. So long as it had decent medical care, like Costa Rica, which isn't really third world. But yeah, sure. I mean, Mexico has great medical care. You know, I mean, let me tell a story, John. So my grandfather was in the French resistance. And he learned, he was a communist and he learned that the, you know, what was going on, what happened to the people who were being deported. His best friend was Jewish. He was in southern France, south of the line of demarcation when he learned this. And at great personal risk, he crossed the line of demarcation illegally without papers, went to Paris, looked up his friend and said, I've arranged for you and your family to escape across the Pyrenee

mountains to Spain. But we have to leave tomorrow. Tell your neighbors, if they want to buy any furniture, to give you whatever cash you have, but we have to leave in the morning. His best friend trusted him implicitly and said, okay, I will, you know, I'll go talk to my wife. He goes and talks to his wife. He comes out. He says, we're not leaving. He's like, you don't understand what I just explained to you. I mean, you and your daughters and your wife, you're all going to be killed. And he's like, no, but we've decided to stay here. I mean, we don't really believe that it's going to be that bad. I mean, it's not possible what you're describing. We have this beautiful apartment. He said this, always would tell the story. All this furniture, the view of the

Eiffel Tower, rent-controlled apartment, all the China in the China cabinet. We can't, like we'd have to leave it. So, obviously, my, there's nothing else he could do. He went home. Years past, my grandfather went through misadventures, spent six months at Buchenwald, made ultimately at the end of the war, made his way back to Paris. The door was open. The apartment was empty, had been looted. The family had been all rounded up in the, they called it the Rafre, which was the big roundup in the summer of 1942.

They'd all been sent to Auschwitz. They were all killed immediately upon arrival. And my grandfather used to tell that story, and he said, the most important thing in life is not to be strong or to be smart. It's to be flexible. To be able to like turn on a dime and recognize that everything's changed, nothing will ever be the same that you are, that, you know, suddenly what was true until five minutes ago is no longer true and to just react accordingly and just do, you know, like Sully on the. plane bird strike got to land on the on the water on the Hudson and it's like and I and I've always thought of that and so that's my answer man like I that if things go tits up yeah I have my two passports ready I'm out I always too that that's I have a passport card is so that if I don't

have my passport on me I can drive to the Canadian border and leave if I have to I'll always have that passport that's with me real wisdom that's real wisdom um and and i would agree i'll tell you i haven't said this publicly because it's really nobody's business but since 2018 i've been involved in a very difficult very expensive ongoing custody battle and i've spent a million dollars since the summer of 2018 which means it's wiped out every cent that i spent 40 years saving, right? Every cent of it, it's gone.

So I can move like I could move when I was 25. I don't own anything anymore. I don't own a home. Freedom. My car, yeah, my car's 12 years old. I can just up and leave if I have to. And like you said, Ted, I've got that EU passport that just opens doors for me that otherwise would never have been.

open and I have that too um so Robbie we have a go ahead and post that ad up and I'll I'll go ahead and read do the read through um Robbie's reminding us that uh I'm something very special um Brumble is uh maybe glitchy today but something very cool for you rumble premium subscribers um I interview I'm interviewing John about his life story and uh we've already recorded two one hour segments and basically we're just starting at the beginning and John's just talking about his life and it's fucking amazing. We also, I can't wait for the third one. We're doing tomorrow, 12 new, don't forget, we're recording it, not live. And so it's up in the Rumble premium. It's streaming tomorrow. So, you know, we will, so keep a look out for that. If you miss it live, I mean,

it doesn't matter if you watch it live because we're not live. So, you know, whatever. But you can just, it goes up to, it's dropping tomorrow. Go take a look at it. We'll have a third one up. We'll second and the third one up very soon. We'll keep you posted on that. Then John's going to return the favor and interview me. And I interviewed Robbie. And it was also amazing. Robbie's informing us that it's going up at 930 Pacific tomorrow morning, 1230 Eastern time. So, all right, let's let's get through this ad. You've probably noticed Rumble is. growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're building a real alternative to big tech

that puts creators first and actually protects free speech. And now there's Rumble premium an easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the platform. No pre-rolls, no interruptions, just the content you came for. Plus, premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos.

Behind the scene drops and more from your favorite creators right now. Rumble is offering $10 off an annual subscription. Just go to Rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout that's rumble.com slash premium promo code studio no ads more freedom and content you actually care about that's the deal also um as robbie likes to remind us if you don't want to do the whole rumble thing you can just subscribe to deep program for five bucks a month over there okay add over um yeah may i answer a question to please uh scott mathison says

what's a passport card this is a passport card i've never had one before i got one before i got one four weeks ago for the very first time. Here's the back of it. I didn't know what these were for either. They're so you can go to Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, Bermuda without a passport. By land. It's only good for land crossings. You can't fly. Oh, see, I didn't know that. Yeah, you can't fly to Canada. You can't fly to Toronto and use this. Although I don't think they would kill you or anything. But I mean, you learn something new every day. But if you drive across the border or you take a cruise in the Caribbean. Right. Yes. So I have no intention to take a cruise. Although these days I might be careful because, you know, they're bombing boats in the Caribbean. So. Yes. And killing everybody on

the, on the boat. Yeah. That's not cool. Oh, Hamish McKinnis. I'm loving that comment. Bustamante is the Andrew Tate of the CIA. You know what? Let's not go down that road. Yeah, no. I'm sure we'll be back there sooner rather than later. We do have other stuff to talk about. Do we want to talk about that? Yeah, we do. Okay, so Pete Hankseth. He said, he ordered a, he and Trump ordered a bombing of a boat. They showed the video. You've probably seen it if you watch the news. Oh, yeah, man. They claim it's a, it's a, they claim A, that Trend de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang is bringing in fentanyl and other crap into the United States. They declared them terrorists. And then they're saying that this boat was full of Trenda Aragua terrorists, 11 of them, and that basically they bombed it. It looks to be like a drone strike, but who knows. That was exactly what I thought. And so it sounds like it was just one whatever fired, killed everybody on the boat.

Now, this boat, John, it was in the southern Caribbean. It was from leaving Venezuela on its way to Canada, which is this far out of Venezuela. And did you see that the Trinidadian prime minister? Oh, yeah. International waters. Did you see the statement from the Trinidadian prime minister today? No. She released a statement and she said, please blow up every boat that is trying to bring drugs to Trinidad.

We can't handle it otherwise. And then there's this 15. nation, I forget what it's called, the Caribbean Consortium of, I don't know what. So they issued a statement saying, whoa, wait a minute. No, don't blow up every boat unless you do it after consulting us. And there's been no response from DOD. So there's been no cooperation with the Trinidadian authorities. You know what, to tell you the truth, Ted.

And I think, I think that it never occurred to anybody in the administration to even bother suggesting cooperation. God forbid. M.W. Knox 186 brings up the Ted Raulpoint. You're exactly right. Even if they were drug traffickers slash terrorists, couldn't they have just arrested them? I should think so. I mean, I would agree. Karakom, thank you.

Thank you, Christian. That's what it's called. Yes. Yes. M.W. Knox is right. What's up with that? And again, you know, this is one of the beefs that I had with the CIA for so many years. If you want to get technical, not a single one of these people was charged with a crime. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Sean. Sorry, Scott Matheson. Thank you for that. No evidence that there was any drugs. Also important. I mean, I think about like JFK went on national television to show the satellite footage.

That's right. The spy plane footage, the U-2 footage of Cuba and the missiles that the Soviets had put there, because he wanted to explain that, like, he wasn't making shit up when he brought the world to the brink of World War III, you know, when he was complaining about the USSR. It's like, here, we have no evidence whatsoever. I mean, is that because, A, there's no evidence because it's not true. and it may not be true. Yeah.

B, it is true, but they would rather, they're trying to set the precedent that they don't need to fucking explain anything so that they can go after people without evidence in the future, or C, both, A and B. And the administration's never going to tell us. They'll never tell us.

And what they're going to do is just move on. They're just not going to answer questions about this thing. They'll move on and they'll do it again. No, Nick is saying, drug cartels are working with that government. That's true. I went to Africa in 2011 when I was with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to write a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report on cooperation between the Venezuelan government and West African governments that were transit points for

South American cocaine that was destined for Western Europe. And the truth of the matter is the Venezuelan government knew exactly what it was doing. And it was making a lot of money by looking the other way

on these cocaine shipments. So, okay, let's but let's also separate this out. Sorry, drug cartels are not terrorists. Terrorists, by definition, right, John, correct me if I'm wrong. You spent a lot of years chasing down terrorists.

Terrorists use, are people who use violence in order to affect, in order to try to change a government's political position, right? That's what it's for. Exactly right. Like 9-11 is like basically, you know, get U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, quit supporting the Israelis against the Palestinians, quit fucking with. Islam in general, basically. Exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah, you know, this is another thing that's kind of a pet peeve of mine.

Terrorism is using violence to instill terror in a civilian population for political reasons. And that's not what Trenda Aragua does, even allegedly. Drug smuggling is not terrorism. So this is going to be, if this, I mean, look, Trenda Aragua is not. not going to federal court to complain about this. But if anybody had standing and brought this to a court, this is going to be thrown out, right? I mean, this is going to be very similar to what just happens with the Alien Enemies Act being used to target Venezuelan immigrants.

Basically, Trump claims that in that case, that Venezuela had invaded the United States by encouraging its Venezuelan nationals to come here illegally and that that constitutes an invasion. The judge, this was the Fifth Circuit, which is a conservative court. They said, no, that's not true. It's like an invasion force has a very key, clear definition. It's an armed force by a nation state. That's not what we're talking about here. This is just the Venezuelan government being assholes and saying, hey, go and, you know, go who live in the U.S. if they'll let you in. and that's not an invasion and you can't rely on the

Alien Enemies Act and a declaration underneath that for that. This is like that. That's what they're doing all over the place. They're just, they're trying to square peg round hole every fucking bit of law they can. And it basically, until the courts sort things out,

then they get away with it until they don't. Also, but that's a policy. They made a decision when they re-entered the White House. in January 2020, this year, January 2025, they made a policy decision to just do anything they wanted and say, so sue me, thinking they're going to lose a lot, but they're going to win some too. And that's how they're going to force that square pig into the round hole.

Now, the thing is, I mean, I have major problems with this, right? I mean, how many times, I mean, seriously, would you be shocked if you found out later. They weren't, they weren't Trande Aragua. They weren't even Venezuelan. They weren't drug runners. I mean, that could happen easily, right? Yeah, a bunch of Colombian fishermen or something. Sure.

I mean, sure. I wouldn't be surprised. And that's the problem here, is that there's no process. There's no judicial process. So people are like, well, I have no sympathy for drug runners. I don't care if they all get killed. Robbie just said that. I'm like, nor do I. I don't either. Yeah, I don't care either.

But if they're really drug runners, sure, but that's the, you know, that's the $50 million question. Exactly. Exactly. And so that's what they're thinking. And then what's what these judges who basically come out and slam Trump and say, what you're doing is illegal, what you did to kill Mara Albrego Garcia is illegal. It's evil. It's wrong. I'm issuing a, I'm issuing an order. You must stop this. I'm going to stay my order so you can keep doing it. And that I don't understand. And let the government come back and file something because, you know, they're the government. We have to be polite. I'm sorry.

I don't get that. Yeah. But they all do that. You know, Stephen Victor Andrews is making a point. Drug trafficking may not be terrorism, but it is war. That's an important point. Is it? That is, yeah.

And that is why the administration early on declared the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. It wasn't because they're going to start using drones or send the military across the border. It was to free up money that Congress had appropriated only for use in anti-terrorism programs. So what it did is it gave legal authority, for example, for NSA to begin intercepting or targeting for interception the communications of high-level drug cartel. leaders, presumably to then pass that information to the Mexican government so that the Federales and the, I think it's Navy, Navy intelligence is the organization that does it in Mexico can target them. I was surprised at how so many people in the media overreacted to that decision. Like, no, no, no, you're misunderstanding it. It's not so we can do stuff on the ground

against them. It's so we can free up resources to help the Mexicans do stuff. Yeah. So they say there's, Trump said there's more where that came from. Is there or is this one of another

ADHD Trump you know, pay attention to this right now, but you'll not, you will not see this ever again? I think we should take Trump at his word this time. Mm-hmm. I think he's he's serious about this.

Just like the Democrats consistently underestimated his commitment to closing the border. The Democrats like, oh, well, there's no caravan. Americans don't really care so much about the borders the Republicans want us to believe they do. No, you're wrong. People do care about the border. People do want secure borders. I do, and I'm a left one. I don't want terrorists.

I want secure borders in large part. Well, first of all, you're not a country without secure borders. And it's ridiculous not to have it. But also, you know, I believe like producer Robbie in protecting wages. And I think that bringing in cheap foreign labor and exploiting them and driving down American wages is wrong. And that's something that liberals and Democrats used to believe. exactly right go into any meat packing plant for example for example all the pork and chicken plants in north carolina right or the beef uh plants in in kansas and and iowa and illinois

and i i bet you couldn't find an american citizen if you went into these places no that's true that's totally true um we have we're we're getting a little bit close to the hour here um before Before we went on the air, John, we talked about how I didn't really realize how important the Epstein victims thing is, but you brought up an important point. So bring us up this date on what's going on with the fight to get the Trump administration to cough up the Epstein files. This thing began coming to a head today, and it's going to need to be squeezed soon. So, like a Zit and a bad. like angry zit right so um uh congressman thomas massey the libertarian republican from kentucky has filed something called a discharge petition this is like my favorite legislative action

because it's so rare and it's always so controversial and people just lose their shit over these things so what what a discharge petition is is it goes around the speaker of the House and the rules committee because the rules committee and the speaker decide what goes to the floor for a vote. If the speaker says no, it's dead. A discharge petition forces the speaker to send a bill to the floor for a vote. So no subcommittee, no committee, no rules committee, no speaker's office straight to the floor for a vote. But you need 218 signatures. Okay. Well, the division between Democrats and Republicans is very, very close. There are 100, and the last number I saw this afternoon was 196 Democrats signed the petition for Republicans.

Get this. Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert, Massey, and Nancy Mace joining almost all the Democrats. to force this thing out. So what it would do would be to release all Epstein documents in the possession of federal federal government. As Trump. And this is why I'm saying it's coming to an ugly, angry head. Because today, Trump completed his flip-flop on the Epstein issue saying that this is nothing but a Democrat hoax.

a Democrat hoax and then James Comer I guess adjourning Congress early back in late July didn't really help if only there was a there's some people who predicted that yeah

so the reason this is also newsworthy is James Comer said in response to a reporter's question today that all these 37,000 pages of documents that were released yesterday had already been released. Just three percent of these documents are new. And James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee,

said, yeah, well, that's three percent that wasn't released by Biden. It's like, dude, is that really what you're going with? That's going to be your defense here. So Trump then this late this morning said this was a Democrat hoax, which of course it is not. And so the victims. It's like two dozen women went to Capitol Hill today. These are women who were teenagers when they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his friends. They gave a press conference on Capitol Hill today and they said that if the Trump administration does not release the documents, they are going to release the names of all the men who abused them. The one woman who did the most talking, and I didn't recognize her, she said, you know, it's not like we didn't know who these men were.

They're all famous rich men. And if the Trump administration's not going to do the right thing, we're going to release the names. Why haven't they already done it, do you think? Because they've been waiting for the administration to do what it said it was going to do. Remember Trump campaigned on this. They want institutional cover. Because it's so dangerous and fraught legally and otherwise. Yeah.

Yeah. So how do you think this is going to play out? Honestly, I think that it's going to be a slow motion thing. I think DOJ is going to send Chairman Comer the documents. And I think somebody is going to pull a. a Mike Revelle, and they're going to put all 100,000 pages into the congressional record. That's how it's going to get out. So they will.

And then I guess it's going to get out. Yeah. And then what, if anything, is the smoking gun? But one of Biden's deputy assistant attorneys general said today on CNN, I was watching it on the plane, that the statute of limitations for all these sex crimes is five. years so nobody is going to prison over this nobody but they'll be destroyed this is all about embarrassment and public humiliation but you're right they'll be destroyed and and what about those laws that have passed about where victims of sexual assault um have the in a lot of states they can sue in civil

court for an unlimited period of time and there's no there's no statute of limitations that's right that's a that's a that's a me too thing pamela drew on rumbull asks uh hi pamela do you think thomas massey's sidestep move was the brainchild of bruce fine and you might want to say who bruce fine is yeah bruce fine is a great friend of uh of ours and of the show he's one of my best friends um and the easy answer is yes bruce talked him into doing this bruce bruce was um the deputy attorney general under president ragan he's also very very very very close to Thomas Massey. And that's how I know Massey,

because the three of us go to baseball games together. But this was absolutely positively Bruce's idea to force the speaker's hand. Yes. Good question. Let's talk about, I guess this is the, I don't know if you care about this. And we don't have to talk about it if you don't.

But I'm a New Yorker. I know a lot of people who love the opera. And this kind of made me sick. The Met, I know they're always scrounged for cash. The Metropolitan Opera is just made a deal with Saudi Arabia to try to stabilize their finances worth $100 million to do performances over there in Liyadh and other places. And basically, it's kind of like the boss of the Mets like, fuck off, we need the money. We don't care if they, you know, if they chop up journalists

and dissolve them in acid in their consulates, what-evs. I don't know. I mean, I know everybody does business with the Saudis because they have money and lots of it and, you know, and basically nobody's supposed to care. But, I mean, I feel like an arts organization is kind of maybe fairly or unfairly held at a higher standard. That's a good point.

I hadn't considered that. I feel bad, though, that they're going to the Saudis, you know, at least go to the Emirates or the gutteries or something. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. It's a bad look. Chop people up, yeah. Hey, Sky has a question.

John, is hypnosis actually real? You know what? First of all, yes, it is. And Ted and I will talk about that in one of the premium things, because I've got an awesome story about hypnosis. I have a personal hypnosis story, too. I was hypnotized and it worked on me. It works.

That's what I will say. It's real. We hypnotized the source who witnessed the aftermath of an assassination. It's unlike anything I had ever seen in my life. I'll tell you the story. Wow. I look forward to that. Anything else we need to hit?

Harvard, we should probably talk about. Harvard. The judge is a big win. And they're going to win. It's going to go to the Supreme Court and they're going to to win there right i mean yes why didn't all of these institutions fucking fight a whole right that's the question that's the question why did they just pay why did intel agree to give you know what was it 10 10 billion dollars or 10 percent of its outstanding shares whatever

whatever it was um why did they why did they agree to to to do you know why did they agree to to just fork over cash to the administration. I don't understand this. I don't understand either. Yeah, well, say hi, Clovis. Okay. All right, with that, I think we're going to call it a night. John, you've got to get some rest. And we will, tomorrow, I'll see you privately to do the third installment of the interview. Seriously, if you guys don't want to miss it. And wait, so let's see. Brian B is asking, John, did you see, did you guys see my super chat? Oh, my gosh.

How did we miss a super chat? No. What's the super chat? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Looking right now. I'm scrolling up, too.

I'm sorry, because when I run the board, it's kind of like, it's a lot of stuff moving very fast because there's a lot of comments. Ah, I found it. As a green stripe software developer, what advice would John have for me? Thanks for pointing that out, Brian. You know what? I have to think about that one. Greenstripe, in my mind, means you can go anywhere and do anything. And I would always keep that option open, I think.

I think that was the context of the conversation, Brian, when you ask that. I'm sorry that we missed that. Yeah, me too. I apologize for that. How did we miss that? I don't know. It's like I said, it just moved. You look at sometimes the scroll just moves so fast. Little request from, from Robbie. Let me add one other thing. Brian, I love your photo that you have there. Your icon, or what do you call it? Is it an icon? What's that thing called? I'm sorry, I'm so tired. Avatar.

Your avatar. Thank you. I love it. Love it. Excellent. All right. As an artist, I will let this be the last statement today. Stephen Victor Andrews, artists are held to the lowest standard.

I hope so, as an artist myself. All right, guys, thank you so much for joining us. Please, please, please join us on Rumble. That's where we make some money as opposed to YouTube. We appreciate you YouTubers as well. though, you can, a lot of people watch us on both because sometimes the Rumble Feet is glitchy. And then you can sort of have it run while you watch us on YouTube. Not a problem at all.

So please like, follow and share the show. We're back to our regular schedule Monday through Friday tomorrow on Thursday, September 4th. We'll be here at 5 o'clock Eastern Time. Looking forward to it as always. And thank you very, very much as always. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.